The Mech Touch

"Maow."

Gloriana briefly turned her head so that she could throw a pointed glare at Ves.

Though she did not verbalize her opinions, she clearly grew annoyed at the fact that her husband became distracted yet again!

Ves was not stupid enough to ignore his current work assignments. His attention span had grown quite expansive, so he was always able to retain enough focus on his essential tasks.

The reason why Gloriana grew irked at him was because he was putting less than too percent of himself into his job at the moment!

While he knew that his wife wanted him to get back on track, Ves had grown far too enamored with the secrets of traditional craftsmanship to put them out of his mind.

The reason why he refused to set Vulcan's unique insights aside was because he was convinced he could apply some of them to his current work!

Of course, he did not intend to do anything crazy like kill a random person and transfer his soul to the Jupiter Project.

Ves was able to make his mechs alive by himself just fine. Vulcan did not master any detailed knowledge related to the methods of creation of high-end artifacts anyway.

What actually interested Ves was the more basic theories and approaches towards creating an artifact.

Every traditional blacksmith with dreams of becoming more started their careers by developing a strong familiarity and affinity with a small variety of hyper materials.

They first started out with working with a couple of weaker hypers that they had on hand. It was best if they shared the same attributes, as the lessons they learned from one of them could also be used to figure out other similar hyper materials.

There were many different ways for traditional blacksmiths to develop a strong familiarity with a specific hyper. These secret methods and techniques were highly prized in ancient times. The most effective ones had taken shape over many generations by excellent masters of their respective crafts!

As such, these secret inheritances happened to be the most prized as they granted creation cultivators a much easier path to becoming a True God!

The scattered records of a Divine Blacksmith that Ves had exchanged during the Survivalist conference contained bits and pieces of these obscure methods.

His mother had contributed a handful of foundational tricks as well when she composed the Metal God Method.

It was a pity that Vulcan did not have access to a full and comprehensive inheritance. If he did, then he could quickly and efficiency master the use of hyper materials from low-grade to high-grade all the way until his craftsmanship approached the level of a Divine Blacksmith!

Ves yearned even more for the Divine Blacksmith Records Enlightenment Fruit.

A part of him wished that he had disregarded his other needs and plucked it from the Tree of Possibilities.

With the knowledge that he possessed today, he knew it was worth as much if not more than the 975 Ascension Points charged by the Mech Designer System!

Another part of him regretted the decision to transfer the Iron Resonant Crucifix Crown to Vulcan.

Although his incarnation could clearly make much better use of it, Ves still missed the short period of time where the symbol of authority consistently supplied 1AP to him every standard day.

Perhaps he should have waited a year or two before he allowed Vulcan to practice his new cultivation method.

He shook his head. There was no point in crying over spilled milk. If Vulcan did not practice his dearest mother's cultivation method so quickly, Ves wouldn't have been able to gain all of these insights in the dawn of the new age.

As Gloriana kept transmitting ominous warning messages to him through the design network, Ves did not dare to let his thoughts go off on so many interesting tangents.

What mattered the most at this junction was how to translate Vulcan's insights into his current work.

The dominant theme of the Jupiter Project was light. The entire mech was centered around turning it into the brightest mech on the battlefield. The brighter it became, the more power Uncle Ark could exert on the battlefield!

It was not difficult for Ves to pay more attention to the attribute of light, but he would rather focus more on life.

Fortunately, that was what Vulcan was for. As the design spirit continued to work with Ves, he began to employ simple methods to deepen his familiarity with the hyper materials that were sensitive towards the light attribute.

The gains were small but not negligible. Every time Vulcan learned a new trick or insight, he seamlessly transferred his gains to Ves, who subsequently improved the quality of his work.

Gloriana benefited as well. The design network ensured that if one of them learned anything useful, the other participants could benefit as well!

While there were still limits to transferring information over the design network, it was easy enough for Gloriana to comprehend the same insights so long as they weren't complicated.

Occasionally, Ves and Vulcan developed an opinion that conflicted with Gloriana's own perspective towards her work. She simply chose to stick to her own opinions in those cases.

Days went by as the two mech designers continued to work in harmony.

Though Gloriana occasionally took lengthy breaks in order to refresh her mind and to care for her children, Ves almost worked non-stop!

He was on a roll. Not only was he bringing one of his most powerful mechs to date into existence, he was also doing so at the same time he was starting to get immersed in the world of traditional blacksmithing!

While the process of fabricating a modern mech was completely different from forging a traditional artifact weapon, craftsmen possessed similar mentalities no matter what they specialized in making.

While Ves frequently got distracted by many whimsical ideas anyway, it did not affect his productivity nor the quality of his work.

He was the sort of mech designer who thrived when he got to play with fancy new toys, and right now the insights related to traditional blacksmithing stoked his passion like nothing else!

In the meantime, Vulcan was gradually growing more familiar with the hyper materials that all possessed a special relationship with light.

The design spirit not only learned how to preserve their properties better when they were integrated into different components, but also figured out how to optimize their interaction with E energy so that they produced less waste and conflict.

All of these improvements enabled Vulcan and by extension Ves to subtly increase the Jupiter Project's ability to harness the power of light once it was complete!

Meanwhile, Alexa and Ark entertained many different thoughts as they witnessed the expert mech being made one step at a time.

Ark had always been a soldier. He never witnessed a mech being made in front of his eyes in his life. This was a completely new experience for him, and it was a lot more special because of his strong connection to his current work!

It was incredibly wondrous for him to get a peek of all of the thoughts and ideas that Ves and Gloriana entertained about the Jupiter Project.

No spoken or written words could convey the full depth, understanding and affection that the two mech held towards the impressive high-tier expert mech.

Even though Ark did not understand much of the complicated science and jargon that the mech designers used to shape their understanding of the Jupiter Project, he could still get an overall sense of the strengths and weaknesses of many different parts.

For example, he learned that activating the Giantslayer Mode of his plasma sword had a small chance of causing it to explode in a catastrophic fashion, particularly if the weapon got damaged beforehand!

Only by advancing to the rank of ace pilot would Ark be able to mitigate or remove this potential danger.

At the very least, his strengthened intuition would be able to warn him about the threat before he made the wrong move.

Ark also learned that Ves already had an idea in mind of who they wanted to collaborate with if they needed to upgrade the Jupiter Project into an ace mech.

His nephew would most likely want to cooperate with Master Benedict Cortez of the Cross Clan.

Even though the Master did not have a lot of qualifications compared to others who had managed to realize their own design philosophies, Benedict had successfully upgraded the Mars into a powerful ace mech.

If Ves could not turn to Master Benedict, then he would try and invite one of the Terran Master Mech Designers employed by the Eden Institute of Business & Technology.

As the hours and days passed by, Ark began to feel as if he was already forming a growing connection to his mech.

The assembly phase had yet to start, but Ark felt as if parts of him started to bleed into the components as they were being made.

The design network practically granted him a first-hand feel for every single work process. His willpower spread through the invisible bonds and caused the others to constantly know what he felt and what he desired from his upcoming machine.

Ark wanted a mech that was fit for a hero and a guardian!

The choice of orienting his expert mech around light turned out to be a fitting decision. Ark fully embraced the vision and the ideal set forth by this particular design.

The only issue he had with his mech design was that he did not think it was fitting to associate it with Jupiter.

Its final name needed to be different in order to encapsulate his special feelings for his perfect vessel!

As the fabrication phase finally came to an end, Ves and Gloriana took a short break before they moved on to assembling all of the new and complicated parts.

Many of the components contained hyper materials, which meant that they had already been imbued with E energy!

This made the assembly process a little more complex as the parts all affected each other in mysterious ways whenever they came into close proximity with each other.

Fortunately, the hyper tech used in the Jupiter Project was not that complicated. There was almost no chance that any accidents might occur because the mech design did not combine a lot of different elements.

Ves mostly had to pay attention to preventing anything weird from happening when several different attributes mixed up with each other.

As the powerful expert command mech slowly started to take on its final shape, E energies attributed towards light, metal, life and water already started to swirl through the incomplete mech frame.

The artifact mech was slowly coming to life.

Though Ves had made sure that it did not birth an independent personality, he was sure that the empty shell would become so strong at the start that Ark would immediately be able to channel more power through his new machine!

"Impressive." Alexa Streon couldn't help but voice her appreciation as she assisted on the side.

She was mainly tasked with inspecting the parts for any defects or other deviations.

She regretted the fact that she could not play a more integral role in the creation of an expert mech that was obviously shaping to become a lot more exceptional than any other mech she had made in her life!

By the time Ves entered the cockpit of the nearly completed mech, he added the final touch to the Jupiter Project.

Ves smiled as he floated out the cockpit.

The energy silhouette of a large dwarf-like form surrounded his form, giving off the impression as if he had been possessed by a god all this time!

After a few moments of staring, Ves slowly withdrew a tiny and delicate hammer from his toolbelt.

He floated closer to the chest of his newly completed machine and struck his tiny hammer against the surface of his completed work!

TING-

A single, clear melodious tone harmonized throughout the entire mech frame!

As the sound mysteriously resonated throughout the complicated mechanical structure of the powerful machine, the mech frame gradually acquired more depth and charm.

Gloriana broke out in smiles as she recognized that she had managed to meet her goal for this exhausting design project!

"Masterwork!"